Facebook set to launch Groupon-style deals service
As you’ve no doubt noticed, Facebook are in the process of increasing the range of services and products available to its vast and ever expanding user base. In keeping with this, last week they announced that they would test a Groupon style deals service, to be incorporated into their present Deals program.

Facebook’s move comes as little surprise at their present rate of diversification and will no doubt increase Facebook’s pressure on the existing online deal service providers. According to the Virginia based consulting firm BIA/Kelsey by 2015 the daily deal service industry will generate $3.93 billion.

Facebook improve Insights service
As the number of brands that are using Facebook as part their marketing (and sales) strategy increases, so too has the pressure for Facebook to improve their Facebook Insights service, which previously offered only generalised performance feedback.

Developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience. The answer is no.

Existing Twitter API clients are safe, for now, but as for developers looking to develop new ways for users to make the most of the platform, back to the drawing board methinks…

Foursquare 3.0 launches and also make it easier for users to find local deals
Foursquare celebrated its two-year anniversary last week with the launch of Foursquare 3.0, a new release of the app which includes recommendations from experts in your social network, and new-style rewards for businesses to offer to customers.

The new app also includes an ‘explore’ option which gives personal recommendations based on your history and interests, as well as an overhaul to the leaderboard that makes it a lot more social – it offers more points for new activities, such as checking in at new venues, especially if it is with old friends. Impressive stuff.

Chrysler join the Twitter hall of #fail
It’s all becoming a little familiar now: a huge, largely respected brand; a Twitter user who thinks they’re signed into their personal account; and an ill judged or downright offensive tweet…

What happened to Chrysler has echoes of what happened recently to the American Red Cross. In that instance a personal tweet went out on the main account. The US charity quickly owned up and then smartly rode the good will and publicity that came with its admission.

We can’t believe how often these sort of situations arise. With proper workflow managment software used to update brand accounts (i.e. a separate Twitter client from the one used for personal accounts) and rules of engagement in place, this sort of thing just shouldn’t happen.

Nikon’s ‘The Chase, powered by Ashton Kutcher’
Nikon, together with Ashton Kutcher, have launched a clue-based game at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Users are encouraged to follow a set of clues left on Twitter and Facebook by Ashton for different locations around the city that they need to get to. Once users arrive and checkin on Foursquare, they’ll have a chance to win a bunch of free stuff. Camera stuff.

UK Uncut hack Vodafone website
Vodafone has recently been the target of lobbying group UK Uncut over its reported six billion pound unpaid tax bill – and it continued with the World of Difference blog (Vodafone’s charity scheme) being hacked. A blog post was published which declared that: “We demand that the Government force Vodafone pay the £6bn in the tax it owes to the public, in order to prevent the cuts to charities and essential public services”, but the site crashed and Vodafone managed to wrest back control later in the day.

Share your breakfast
Kellogg’s have started an innovative campaign around people sharing pictures of them eating their breakfast – for each picture uploaded, Kellogg’s will donate a breakfast to a child who would otherwise go without. The campaign is a real integrated effort from Kellogg’s – but we can’t work out what it has more of: snap, crackle or pop?